


If I'm Going To Go Crazy, I'm Glad It's With You

by gay_writes_with_mac



Series: Rositara [4]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Domestic, F/F, Parenthood, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:29:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21950737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gay_writes_with_mac/pseuds/gay_writes_with_mac
Summary: A particularly hard day drags Rosita down. Luckily, Tara is there to pick her back up.
Relationships: Tara Chambler/Rosita Espinosa
Series: Rositara [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1629475
Kudos: 24





	If I'm Going To Go Crazy, I'm Glad It's With You

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short, fluffy oneshot I hammered out to work past some writer's block ;)

“Coco!” Rosita whirls around just in time to see her oldest daughter’s little feet disappear around the kitchen corner. “Socorro Mariana Lillian Espinosa, I told you not to touch those!”

No response other than the continued sound of Coco fleeing her mother’s wrath, a fistful of Skittles in hand, and a few self-satisfied giggles. With a sigh of exasperation, Rosita drops the knife onto the wooden cutting board, abandoning the peppers she was attempting to cut up for dinner to go after her five-year-old daughter.

She’s barely made it out of the kitchen when the resounding _smash_ of shattering ceramic sends her rushing back to find her other daughter surrounded in a ring of the shards of what was once a dish of pasta, staring in horror at the remnants of dinner on the floor. “Isadora Meghan-” Rosita starts, but before she can even spew out her three-year-old’s full name, the baby starts bawling from his crib, wailing for her attention.

Rosita could have wept herself. She can still hear the echoes of Coco’s feet upstairs, and that’s what probably woke the baby, and Isadora stares up at her with pure fear in her big round eyes, and she’s suddenly aware that she must look on the verge of murder. 

She feels like it, too, but she forces herself to take a deep breath, counting backwards from ten slowly in her head. When she reaches one, her heart is still racing and she’s still drowning in hopelessness, but the worst of the overwhelming anger and frustration is fading, leaving her drenched in guilt for frightening Isadora. She’s only three, three-year-olds break things...and it’s her own fault for being so upset.

“Isadora,” she starts again, calmer this time. “I want you and Coco to go and play _quietly_ in your room. Now. Please.”

Isadora scurries away immediately, leaving Rosita exactly a millisecond to breathe before going to check on her son. As it turns out, Coco’s not to blame after all - Alejandro did her the courtesy of _somehow_ falling face-first into the corner of his crib, resulting in a gushing nosebleed, a bout of pain-induced hysteria, and sheets that resemble a violent murder scene.

She calms him down, wipes the blood from his face, wrestles him into a new set of pajamas, settles him in the living room in his high-chair to hopefully amuse himself with watching the spinning ceiling fan for a few minutes, and practically collapses at the kitchen table, unable to summon the energy to even look at the mess of pasta and ceramic on the floor behind her.

The door finally squeaks open - Tara keeps swearing she’ll oil the hinges, which Rosita is privately certain will actually happen when the devil requests a glass of ice water - and her wife is home, her eyes widening as she takes in the shattered plate, the pasta on the floor, and Rosita covered in baby snot and dried blood, head buried in her hands. “Did I miss the tornado?” Tara teases, draping herself over the back of the chair to wrap her arms around Rosita’s shoulders, pressing a soft kiss to her cheek. “Rough day, huh?”

“You could say that,” Rosita mumbles, slumping back into Tara’s arms. “Dinner’s ruined, and Coco’s swiped about half a bowl of Skittles since I picked her up from kindergarten - she’s just too damn fast for me - and the baby nearly knocked himself out during his nap and the sheets are _ruined-_ I don’t know what to _do,_ Tara.”

“Okay,” Tara murmurs, and she doesn’t even flinch at the unintentional harshness in Rosita’s voice. “Tell you what, love. Go upstairs, take a nap, steal my iPod, read _The Art Of War_ again...whatever you need to do to recharge your batteries a little. I’ll order pizza for dinner and get the floor cleaned up. We’ll let the kids watch a movie, and when they go to bed, you have me all to yourself. Whatever you want, barring any felonies or misdemeanors.”

“You’re so - so _good_ at this,” Rosita manages, and her voice is dangerously stuffy as she places a hand over Tara’s, keeping her arms in place around her shoulders. “You just - just roll with the punches, and I _can’t-_ ”

“Absolutely not,” Tara answers, and she sounds shocked at even the idea. “I’m fresh troops, babe, that’s all it is. You’ve been with them all day, of course they’re wearing you down by now. They’d get me just the same.”

“I scared Dora,” Rosita admits, choking back tears at the memory of the fear on her daughter’s face. “When she broke the plate...she looked so scared of me...and I just feel like...like I’m the worst mom in the world…”

“Hey,” Tara says sternly, her arms tightening around Rosita. “You are not the worst mom in the world. You’re a pretty damn good one. And I doubt she’s going to be traumatized for life because you looked kinda mad when she smashed your plate. If anything, she deserved it, because I guarantee it was at least a little on purpose. I caught her dropping stuff off the top bunk last week just to watch it fall. We may be raising a serial killer.”

Rosita lets out a watery giggle, wiping her eyes on the edge of her sleeve. “You’re the best, you know that? I’m so glad I married you.”

“I try,” Tara jokes, kissing her temple softly. “Is now a bad time to tell you your hair smells like carrot baby food?”

Rosita raises an eyebrow, leaning back to look up at her wife. “Do you wanna sleep on the couch tonight?”

“No, no,” Tara rushes to assure her, grinning in spite of herself. “That won’t be necessary.”

“Then watch yourself, _hermosa._ ” Rosita smirks, kissing her despite how it instantly nullifies her threat. “I think I’ll take you up on the iPod. Call me when pizza’s here?”

“Course,” Tara agrees, stepping back from the chair. “I left it on the nightstand. I love you, ‘Zita. And the kids do too, even if they show it by trying to make you go grey by forty.”

“If I’m going to go crazy...I’m glad it’s in this madhouse,” Rosita teases back, leaving Tara with one more kiss before retreating from the trenches to the safety of their bedroom.


End file.
